Google looks to measure ‘influence’ and the ‘influencers’

Dirk van Graver at “Record | Preserve | Share” has commented on a business week article that asks us to imagine one number that sums up how influential we are.  It is a subject I discussed some time ago, when I was craving a golden ratio in relation to social networking.

Back then I said;

It is pretty obvious Trust would be a great dimension for social networks to embrace. So would Influence or Buzz (or both). And when elements like this are developed I believe Social Networks will be onto something very significant indeed.

If you didn’t follow the link, according to the Business Week piece, Google has a patent pending “for ranking the most influential people on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.”

It is a great idea.  Clearly if this works, it would finally make adverts on social networks relevant and potentially profitable.

It would seem (if the report is to be believed) that Google is applying the same approach to social networks that it has used to dominate the online search business (it would be like a page rank).  Apparently the Google approach would take into account all manner of aspects of influence, from ‘how many’ people you know, to ‘how frequently’ you talk with them, to ‘how strongly’ they value your opinion.  So your ‘score’ could be compared with that of pretty much anyone in the world.  A personal Google ‘influence score’ if you like.

Hear are my hopes and fears:

FEAR #1: I worry that if an influence score is used to justify, or generate a monitization strategy for social networking sites, the emphasis on what constitutes ‘influence’ must start on a sound footing.  This is an area that I really don’t want to see messed up – as I’m not sure many social networking sites can withstand high profile failures at monitization.

FEAR # 2:  If influence is measured by Google, (or anyone else) surely everyone will be able to find their (or their companies, or their competitors) biggest advocates or doomsayers?  Yes?  Well I cannot see that happening accurately.  I would be very surprised if your biggest influencers are known by you (i.e connected to you) and so how do Google propose to measure or track that?  And in fact, surely influencers by definition are 3rd parties (i.e. are unconnected to you) in the first place?

Hey, maybe I missed something and that is the whole reason why Google is exploring this.

Which brings me on to my great hope.

Hope #1: I hope how ‘many’ people you know (‘follow’, ‘connect’ with, ‘add’ as a friend) is not closely related to your degree of influence.  Those fools who have adopted a strategy of following ‘en-masse’ in Twitter (in the hope that a high percentage will return the favour) must not be seen by advertising buyers and sellers as ‘influencial’.  They are not.  Bob with 1000 friends is not necessarily more influential than Susan with just 85.

Equally seniority isn’t the be-all either.  John the 46 year old bachelor & CEO is not necessarily more influential than Raphael the 28 year old IT Manager, who is a father of two.  And postcode xyz, doesn’t bear higher influencers than postcode 123, in the same way that an OxBridge student shouldn’t be seen as more influencial that a 2:2 student from a ‘lesser’ ranked university.  My hope is that an influence algorithm doesn’t arbitrarily look at volumes and a set of pre-determined values and rules.

Influence is, I believe, far more multi dimensional and complex than that.

If this becomes a reality what are your hopes and fears for ‘Influencer’ tracking?  I’d love to here your views.

Why next year will be make or break for traditional media

I’ve never copied anything into my blog verbatim so I really want to reference the source on this one……so for the absence of doubt what follows is taken entirely from The Business, and was authored by David Crow (Not me). It is a great piece, and I think you should read it.

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It is hard to overstate the changes that took place in the media in 2007. In Europe, this was the first ever year that 16-24 year olds – the consumers behind today’s technological revolution – accessed the internet more frequently than they watched TV. Now, nearly eight years into the millennium, even the heretics who dismissed the internet as a flash in the pan are realising just how wrong they were.

While 2008 will be a year of flux, some things are unlikely to change. Circulation figures for daily paid-for newspapers will continue to dip, with the odd exception; the best editors will be the ones who adopt a two pronged approach of managing the decline in print sales – instead of trying to avert it – while investing more and more resources in their digital operations.

The Daily Mail – one of the few papers to post a year-on-year increase in November’s ABC figures – will continue to be the envy of all on Fleet Street. Last month’s assurance by editor Paul Dacre, 60 next year, that he has no plans to step down came as a relief to shareholders; it is hard to imagine the paper reading the mood of modern Britain so expertly without him. In 2008, the title will build on its newfound digital success after it hit the ground running earlier this year.

Sunday titles will continue to fare better than their daily counterparts in 2008. The Observer – which reported a 1.41% year-on-year increase in November’s ABCs – is testament to the fact that the peculiar British relationship with Sunday newspapers will remain strong. All eyes will be on how its integration with The Guardian goes, however.

Daily freesheets will be one of the few print products to see increasing revenues in 2008. Metro, owned by Associated Newspapers, is likely to be the star of the sector; its combined regional distribution – currently at around 1.4m – will continue to rise and, at some point in 2008, overtake the Daily Mirror’s circulation.

The latter, along with nearly every other daily and Sunday red top – with the inexplicable exception of the Daily Star titles – will watch The Sun continue to demonstrate that it is possible to build a successful red top brand online and in print. Hopes that the Mirror will be able to follow suit are fading.

Across the pond, staff at the Wall Street Journal will realise that Rupert Murdoch’s plans to turn the title into a global power brand can only benefit the newspaper. Media coverage of the presidential election – like Australia’s recent vote – will be increasingly defined by web giant Google, which will come into direct competition with newspapers and broadcasters by reporting the contest first hand.

DAB digital radio will continue its march to become Britain’s preferred radio platform. By the end of 2008, 30% of households will own a DAB radio, with sales rising by 26% to 2.6m units worth £200m. 4 Digital – the consortium behind the 10 new digital radio stations that will launch next year – is hoping to open up digital radio in the way Channel 4 boosted the fortunes of digital Freeview TV.

The new stations will provide some much needed competition to the BBC. E4 radio, which will focus on the youth market, will go head to head with Radio 1 while Channel 4 Radio – a contemporary speech station with what the consortium call “public service values” will provide an alternative to BBC Radio 4. Earlier this month 4Digital poached the controller of BBC Radio 5 Live, suggesting it is serious about taking on the Beeb. BBC radio stations account for 54% of all radio listening and a massive 86% of speech-based listening; 2008 will be the year that this starts to change.

For established broadcasters, next year will be one of unlikely alliances, formed in an attempt to see off the growing threat from new competitors. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a joint on-demand service, enabling customers to download content from all three broadcasters on one platform. The trio hope that the on-demand service – codenamed Kangaroo – will provide an alternative to Sky+ and Virgin On Demand.

In America, Murdoch’s NewsCorp and NBC Universal will officially launch their joint internet TV effort, Hulu, a website hosting popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and Journeyman alongside user-generated clips. Google’s YouTube will continue to be the product to beat.

In 2007, social networking sites finally reached the tipping point, becoming truly mainstream for the first time. In 2008, they will be increasingly counted alongside TV, newspapers, magazines and radio as the fifth staple of the consumer’s media diet.

Facebook will continue to be the social network to beat, although top-dog status will bring new woes. Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive – once the poster-boy for the Facebook generation – is fast becoming a scapegoat for the increasing panic over social networking and privacy. Having bungled its attempts to reassure customers over their concerns, Facebook will have to get better at managing its success.

The firms that succeed in 2008 will be those that focus on the needs, desires and interests of their consumer in the contemporary marketplace – and discard their archaic, elitist prejudices born of a different era. For those still referred to as the “traditional” media, 2008 will be the make or break year.

Geek Night 4

I went to an interesting event yesterday evening in Oxford – Oxford Geek Night 4. Oxford Geeks (and the event series) aim to pull together information and people from in and around Oxford, UK. The community is mainly aimed at geeks of computer science and/or Web development, but to be fair they’re a pretty diverse bunch…….Just as well, ‘cos I’m neither, but having worked at a fair few IT companies in my time, ‘Geek’ is a slightly inaccurate descriptive anyway.

In essence, last night’s event aimed to share ideas, techniques and technologies in areas such as web 2.0, the semantic web, online TV, social networking, web development tools and the best practices thereof.

The presentations were very varied. “Saving the World, One Perl Module at a Time” by Tom Steinberg, founder of mySociety showcased a great way that technology + ideas can positively change things. Next up James Gardner, showcased the web framework Pylons.

However, the informal ‘microslots’ of 5 minutes each were the most interesting part for me. These slots took the attendees on a whistle stop tour of the ‘Social Web and the Semantic Web’, Google Sightseeing (Google Earth Blog), Searunner (a new type of web framework founded by Ben Werdmeller), Web Security, and Myth TV (a homebrew PVR project).

Additionally Salmon consultant Rozario Chivers presented his own concepts and ideas on ‘Nanoformats’.

Being a marketer (albeit with a focus on high technology products, services and companies) can give you an instant negative reputation in circles like this, but what I liked most about the style of the event & the community in particular, was how unpretentious they all were, and it all was. This is a sharp contrast to the VC style events I have been to, and the other more formal networking events.

Two big takeaways for me were money might make the world go round, but (big) change is possible without money. And secondly (not that I needed reminding) that great marketing + great technology = the only way forward.

Presentations and Videos will be are available here soon I am sure.

If you are local to Oxford, with a good understanding of web development and web design, and a good level of understanding or interest in technology you might want to consider Geek Night 5, which one assumes will follow soon.

A lesson for those new to Social Networking….

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” Dale Carnegie